The Iron Triangle is starting to lose its grip on the message. Guest analyst Kevin Kerr talks on CNBC about the current spike in oil prices, and how the ‘peak oil theory is coming to fruition.’ No denial, no derision from the host, just a question about when the gas lines form. A year or two ago, a guest mentioning peak oil would have been lambasted as a conspiracy nutcase or worse; today, he’s simply stating his interpretation of current events.

Mr. Kerr is correct that there’s a ‘fear factor’ included in the current pricing of oil, but he also notes that the long-term trend is upward. If oil pulls back to $75 a barrel for a while before the next crisis sends it heading for $100, is that really a big deal?

Oil is hitting all-time highs, yet gasoline prices are relatively reasonable. How long that will stay the case is hard to say. What isn’t hard to say is that the government and Wall Street are not going to give us much advance warning that there’s something fundamentally wrong with energy markets. Panic is bad for (most) investments, and economic crises (especially in a time of massive gulfs between the haves & have-nots) leads to political upheaval. Both energy costs and energy usage patterns are heading for a major paradigm shift, from “cheap and abundant” to “expensive and finite,” and that will change many things about how we lead our lives.

The answer was basically that while gas prices are ‘low’ right now, they are set to climb over the ext 3-6 months, and that will have impacts on the consumer. Mr. Kerr’s answer dealt more with impacts to consumer spending, decisions to ‘not buy that SUV’, etc.

While guest may be allowed to talk about peak oil on TV occasionally now, we’re still not at the point where talk about $5 gas, or gas lines are allowed yet. Sowing panic is bad for business. Also, any prudent analyst wouldn’t talk about gas lines yet, for if their predictions don’t come true, it’s easy to get smeared as yet another doom-mongering Cassandra.